Notes on the Geography of Ghana: Elmina

St. George of Elmina or "the mine," was established by the Portuguese, who arrived in 1482 and went into the gold-trading business. About 150 years later, the Dutch found a convenient hill from which to bombard the Portuguese into surrendering. This was 1637, by which time the primary export from the Gold Coast was slaves; it remained slaves through the 18th century and until the Dutch outlawed slavery in 1814 (seven years after the British). Perhaps the Dutch had no great interest in retaining the place, but in any case in 1872 they sold it--along with all their Gold Coast properties--to the British.

Here's the fort today. Elspeth Huxley's nutshell description is this: "The oldest of them [the Gold Coast castles], and the finest, is Elmina, founded in 1482 by Don Diogo de Azambuja, at the head of an expedition of 500 soldiers and seamen and a hundred workmen and engineers.... The Portuguese brought all necessary materials with them, stone already dressed and timber morticed, and they rushed the fort up in record time. They named it São Jorge de Mina, probably because of an abundance of gold. 'In beauty and strength', Bosman justly observed more than 200 years later, 'it hath not its equal upon the whole Coast'.... After the Dutch captured the castle ..in 1637, they carried out many alterations, and it stands today much as they left it, with tremendous granite walls and battlements whence one can survey the flat surrounding country and the ridged green sea" (Four Guineas, 1954, p. 145)

Far and away the most colorful spot in Elmina, and perhaps in Ghana as a whole, is the fabulous fishing harbor that hugs the castle. Canadian, French, and American flags? Go figure.

Despite the fact that these boats are hardly more than canoes, they venture to sea for days at a time.

A boat returns, with laundry hung over a long beam.

Entrance to the castle. Date of the drawbridge: unknown, but certainly very recent.

The moat is now dry.

Inside, a fine courtyard, surrounded on three sides by massive buildings.

Fine Renaissance staircases.

The view to the sea.

Cannon overlook the harbor, too.

Handsome quarters, but where to put the bed?

Below, a slave-holding dungeon. Did the people above sleep well?

If it's this worn after four years, how will it be after 40?

Looking from the castle to the fort atop St. Jago. It was from that hill, at the time unfortified, that the Dutch launched the cannonade that forced the Portuguese to surrender in 1637. Wise to the site's potential and its vulnerability, the Dutch then fortified it.

The Dutch Cemetery. The arch reads: "O beneficent Mother, receive your children again." The cemetery was established in 1806, which means that there must be an earlier one. Heaven knows where.

The Dutch were good enough to allow English burials.

A generation later, the "military commander of the fixed establishments of this coast" died in 1848.

M. Joost, we read, was fatally injured during the surrender of the coast. Judging from the date, 1872, that would be the sale of the coast to the British.

Some Dutch lingered long after Dutch rule had ended. Could Catherine Menson have been the daughter of a missionary?

A block away, a Methodist church.

We're in the commercial district now, where a chief's house has found a good tenant.

Want a phone? Looking for directions? No problem; you can't miss the place. (MTN is a South African Company, operating widely in Africa.)